Saturday, February 6, 2010

NASHVILLE (AP) — Attorneys for death row inmate Gaile Owens on Friday asked the Tennessee Supreme Court to commute her sentence to life in prison. Alternately, the request asks the court to recommend Gov. Phil Bredesen commute the sentence.

The request is in response to the attorney general's motion to set an execution date, Federal Public Defender Kelley Henry said.

The attorneys said Owens, 57, was the victim of severe domestic abuse and the court never heard the evidence of that abuse.

Owens was convicted in Shelby County in 1986 of hiring Sidney Porterfield to kill her husband.